1:51 PM,
Sep. 7, 2013

Before: One of the graves at the Old Lake Place cemetery was almost hidden by vegetation

Written by

Amy Bennett Williams
Awilliams@news-press.com

This spring, Alva's Old Lake Place Cemetery was an overgrown enigma - a plot so weed-choked and vine-tangled it was all but impossible to get a look at the handful of graves it held.

Not only that, its ownership was mysterious too: In Lee County public records, including the tax collector's and property appraiser's databases, in the space where its owner should be listed, there's no name - just an all-caps "UNKNOWN." When I visited the county's land office, all I found was a 15-year-old memorandum asserting that because the property didn't belong to the county, it shouldn't be taxed.